He handed her the engagement ring in an elaborate looking box. “What’s this ugly rock?” she asked. As she tried to force it open, her boyfriend stopped her, “Honey, that’s extremely rare metallic ore from the Moon. It’ll explode.” “That is out of this world!” she screamed. Being an astronaut has its advantages, he realised.

He stepped onto the podium nervously. Adjusting his Gandhi cap, he looked at all the eyes watching his every move. He knew his words would live on, so he had to choose them carefully. And thus it began at the stroke of midnight, 15 August 1947, “Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny…”

His joy knew no bounds – he had just seen the sun at night! Imagine how jealous the others would be of his discovery! “Papa! Dekho! Raat ko suraj nikla hai!” His father took him by the hand to the terrace, and smiled. He then gave his son the heart-breaking news, “That’s just a lunar eclipse.”

It wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard I tried. Like a vicious banshee, it kept screaming into my ears. I flapped my arms wildly, and even tried screaming myself. But all I could hear was a deathly stillness. The world was as good as a mute, irritating companion, now that I’d lost my hearing.

She couldn’t take her parents’ fights. She started running away. Where to? She didn’t know. After running about 5 km, her lungs started giving way. She fainted. When she woke up, a horde of garishly-dressed women surrounded her. One of them said, “Don’t worry dear; we’re here to help. Kamla, get her dressed right away!”

He felt numb as he sat on the bed. After years of fighting for the country, taking bullets on the chest and enduring enemy torture, he returned home to find his wife had eloped. He put his face in his hands – but a few missing fingers gave him a clear view of his wedding snap.

He ate his cornflakes absent-mindedly. What he didn’t realise was that the colour of the milk slowly turned from white to pink. Drops of blood were falling from the ceiling. Suddenly, a dead body dropped onto his dining table. He vomited. So THIS was the source of the unbearable stench… what a way to die.